Breakout (15 page)

“What are you talking about?”

“We found her handheld a while back. I don't think you've seen any of her logs.”

“Huh.” Jael wasn't sure where she was going with this. It definitely wouldn't help with the ship, which was his first concern.

Her eyes widened. “If she was conducting an audit, and all her gear is still here, then—”

“Rebestah Saren probably didn't make it home.”

17

Competitive Thrust

“It's interesting,” Martine said, half an hour later. “It really is. And if we had time to screw around, I'd say, sure, let's look into this old murder. But—”

“She's right,” Vost agreed.

Calypso added, “What good would it do? We can't do anything for this woman. Didn't you already get in trouble doing vigilante work?”

Dred sighed. “It's not the same. I wasn't planning to
kill
anyone over her. I'd just like to know what happened.”

“That's because you're bored,” Duran said.

“Huh?” Dred stared at the merc.

“You're not good at mechanical work. Nobody needs you to boss them around. So you're looking for something to do.” This time, the short man didn't even take a step closer to Calypso as he occasionally did when he felt threatened.

Silently, she admitted that might be true. “Then nobody will mind if I go over her logs to see if I can find anything out.”

Vost shrugged. “You might learn something useful about the station in her recordings. But probably not.”

“You don't need me on construction anyway,” she muttered.

She'd already passed out the dead woman's clothing. Martine and Calypso were both happy to get a change of clothes; Dred was pretty chuffed about it, too. These uniforms hadn't been washed in a bucket with minimal soap and hung up to dry in a room that reeked of unwashed bodies. No, this fabric smelled . . . unspoiled in a way that was hard to describe, turns of being safeguarded in an airtight container.

“True,” Duran said cheerfully. “So stop interrupting the rest of us.”

Keelah followed her away from the bustle of shipbuilding, back into the dormitories. The alien's eyes were bright with interest or sympathy or possibly both. “You're not alone in your fascination. It's rather marvelous that we have the breathing room to . . . care, isn't it?”

Yes.

She didn't even know that was what she felt until Keelah articulated it. “We've done nothing but fight for so long. It feels miraculous that I could take an interest in something else, something—”

“Esoteric. You can't eat it or mate with it, but you'd like the answer to feed your soul.”

She shied away from the spiritual response. “My mind, anyway. Rebestah was here, trying to do the right thing. It was her first job, and something awful happened to her.”

“You feel moved by her plight, and you'd like to put her ghost to rest.”

“When you put it like that, it sounds crazy.”

Keelah's whiskers twitched. “Truly? It
only
makes sense when I consider it that way. Otherwise, it's a pointless exercise in curiosity when you have more important matters to attend.”

“Like what?” she muttered.

During her time on merc ships, she'd mostly cleaned, so that didn't offer much value in technical work. Beyond that, she was good at hunting and killing. Again, not applicable.

“Precisely.” Keelah sounded sympathetic.

“I don't understand.”

“If there
is
nothing more pressing, why shouldn't you grant this specter peace? Even if her ghost haunts only you.”

She'd almost forgotten the concept of doing something just because she wanted to, but they did have breathing room.
Silence can't get to us. The others don't need me.

Keelah headed out then, presumably to work on the ship. With a grateful smile, Dred kicked back on the bunk with the handheld and started the third log. It seemed to have been recorded in a different room, definitely not this dormitory. The walls were brighter and the furniture more elegant.

“Something is wrong here,” Rebestah said. “I'm supposed to be working with the administrator, but he rarely leaves his quarters, and I can't get his assistant to give me a straight answer. She seems . . . frightened, actually. The vice president of operations does nothing but drink. He hinted he'd be happy to ‘show me the ropes,' but then he grabbed my ass, so I kicked him instead of accepting his offer of on-the-job training.”

Dred smirked. “Good for you.”

The holo went on, “Since they won't cooperate, it's making my job harder. I've been sent as an independent auditor, and once they pass the check, I'm supposed to join the accounting department as a supervisor, two turns in deep space. But so far, I haven't seen one financial document, and I've been here four weeks.”

She had the sense that Rebestah had made these logs because she was lonely. If the higher-ups put the word out that nobody should associate with her, she probably ended up in deep isolation without understanding why. To Dred, it seemed obvious. The execs had been stealing from Monsanto for turns, inflating operation costs and pocketing the rest. Now that their theft was being addressed, they were scared shitless.

“But how did a green girl like you end up with this mission?” Regardless of what Rebestah's old man had claimed, Dred suspected he must've pulled some strings.
Otherwise, wouldn't someone more experienced be assigned?
It only made sense.

“I won't give up,” Rebestah was saying. “Even if it's hard.”

A man swept into the room, obviously weaving, and Rebestah set down her handheld. Dred couldn't get a good look at his face, but he seemed to be middle-aged, medium height and build.
This must be VP of Operations.
The angle was a little awkward, but the intruder didn't seem to realize he was being recorded. This was the closest thing to actual entertainment she'd known in forever, made more compelling by the fact that it was all true.

“Administrator Levin will see you now.”

“Really? That's wonderful.”

“I hope you'll be understanding. He has been . . . ill. The medical officer has treated him, and he's no longer contagious, so you shouldn't worry.”

“Let's go,” Rebestah said brightly.

They went out together, leaving Dred with an empty room and a strange feeling. All her instincts said nothing good would come from this meeting—it was probably a trap—and yet she couldn't warn the girl in the holo. Whatever had happened forty turns ago, the damage was done.

•   •   •

“SO
how bad was it?” Tam asked quietly.

The others were taking a break, and there wasn't a ton of space inside anyway. Jael didn't look forward to a long haul in here, even if they could reboot life support, address engine performance and fuel-efficiency issues. For a few seconds, he pretended he hadn't heard the question, but he should've known the spymaster wouldn't let it go.

“Jael?”

“It was hell,” he said.

Really, what answer was the man expecting? Silence wasn't known for her kind and gentle demeanor. Even in Perdition, she'd earned a certain reputation, so this couldn't come as a complete surprise. And no, he didn't want to talk about it.

“Yet you seem all right. How is that possible?”

“I've had worse.” He'd say it again and again, until they believed him. At least it ended quickly, unlike the legal torture in the labs that they called research. “Can we focus on the ship, please?”

“If you're sure.”

The other man went back to work, tinkering with the computer panel they'd stripped from something else. It was supposed to interface with the whole ship, linking the separate systems, but so far, it only recognized life support; the engines and nav system, rudimentary as they were, didn't pop on the controls.

“Mary.” Jael banged his head against the metal wall, frustrated beyond bearing. “It could take turns to get everything working.”

Without waiting for Tam's response, he tried plugging in a different-color wire and got no better result. Vost was better at this sort of thing, but his specialty was hacking. Nobody but Ike had the skills they needed to make this thing foolproof. An angry sound escaped Jael as he slid to the floor and watched Tam try a couple more things.

“I used to think I'd die here,” Tam said softly. “Now I'm convinced I won't. Because if nothing else, we'll get this thing working well enough for us to die among the stars.”

“That's scant comfort, mate.”

“Is it? If it comes down to it, and we run out of food, we can turn off life support and exit peacefully, together.”

“Eh.” He imagined curling up with Dred for the last time, bodies entwined. “I reckon I can imagine worse ways to go.”

“Exactly. So stop complaining and hand me that adapter.”

Jael tried two parts before getting it right, more evidence that he was better suited to other work. “Have you thought at all about what you'll do when we get out?”

“You mean when we reach civilization?”

He nodded.

Tam smiled slightly. “Sometimes. But I try not to dwell on it. Impossible dreams make it harder to deal with current reality.”

“We need papers,” Jael said, pensive. “I'm talking a top-notch fake ID.”

Tam seemed to agree with that though he wasn't looking this way. “We all do. As lifers, we'll pop on any routine scan, and all the fugitive alerts will sound.”

“Unless we make landfall in the Outskirts. They don't care so much about Conglomerate law, and they don't check databases, either.”

“We can't count on being so lucky,” Tam muttered.

“No shit. If any of us were blessed with good fortune, we wouldn't be on Perdition.”

Before Tam could respond, Vost clambered in the back. “Any luck with the nav? From what I saw, the two engines are competing. They need something to make them work together.”

“But what?” Jael wondered aloud.

“Hell if I know,” Tam said. “It's not like I ever made a ship out of maintenance rigs.”

“We have engines in stern and bow,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

“You going somewhere with this?” Vost wanted to know.

“I'm not sure. But don't most big haulers have engines port and starboard?”

Tam nodded. “That doesn't help us, though.”

“We're going to have problems maneuvering because there will be competitive thrust. We need our propulsion facing the same way.”

“Let's flip the back engine,” Vost said.

“Install it upside down?” Tam didn't look too sure that was a good idea, and it still didn't solve the interface issue.

“More than that, I think we need to wire them together,” Jael said. “If it's a hard connection, then it might help the control panel recognize them both.”

“Worth a shot,” Vost decided. “But it'll be messy as hell with cables running bow to stern. I'll see what I can find for casing.”

Jael shook his head. “I'm a pro on salvage duty. You stay here. I'll look around the bay, and if need be, I'll head up to Repair for a parts run.”

Tam stared. “You really think Dred will be all right with that, after what happened last time you went out?”

Hearing that felt good . . . and awful, the former because his woman cared, the latter because it turned him into a victim, a weakling who needed to be protected. Jael lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Without Hex, they have no hope of taking me alive.”

“I don't think that would make her feel any better,” Vost put in.

He ignored both of them, crawling out the front and down through the vertical door. Both cabin areas were quite a squeeze—no surprise since they hadn't been intended for long-term use. Hopping down, he went over to the pile of discarded scrap, pieces of the repair rigs that hadn't made the cut for the integrated vessel. Nothing in the stack seemed like it would work for shielding the connecting cables, especially ones that linked two powerful engines.

We can't risk an exterior mount, either.
That would mean compromising hull integrity more than it already was with more drilling and welding, plus there was always the chance of free-floating debris around a station like this one. After so many turns without maintenance, the exterior of Perdition might be more dangerous than the inside.